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Teresa Heinz-Kerry’s philanthropy as chairwoman for the Heinz Family Endowment came under scrutiny when her Fund was alleged to have distant links, through the TidesCenter and Tides Foundation grantees, to anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment. Heinz-Kerry, heiress of the late Senator John Heinz’s estate, is the second wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. A few short months before Kerry tossed his hat in to the Democratic National Convention ring, and nine years after her second marriage, Mrs. Kerry ceased being a hyphenate, Heinz-Kerry, and became a Democrat, too.

Factcheck.org, a non partisan fact checking service affiliated with the Annenberg Political Policy Institute of University of Pennsylvania, says it was asked to debunk allegations circulating in a “internet campaign” intended to hurt Kerry’s presidential candidacy by attacking his wife with “whispers” the Heinz Endowment donated funds to Tides Center and Foundation of San Francisco which allegedly funded “a variety of “radical” groups including some that the message suggests are supportive of terrorists.” Tides Foundation, distributing grants for over thirty years, established TidesCenter to administer payrolls, disbursing, legal and administrative work of grant funds for recipients not incorporated as non profits. Factcheck.org confirmed 1998 to 2002 Heinz’s 990’s were accurately filed. Factcheck.org did not look into recipients activities 2003 to present date nor how recipient used the grant. Factcheck.org explained Heinz.org’s 2003 taxes were not filed until August 15th 2003.

Heinz Endowments, http://www.heinz.org and Tides Foundation www.tidesfoundation.org denied on their individual websites any role in funding radical groups. They addressed the “growing number of misleading articles, opinion pieces and viral emails” attacking Teresa Heinz Kerry married to presidential candidate John Kerry.

Chris Herrera, Tides Foundation’s Director of Communications, posted a letter on Tides internet home site entitled “Tides Foundation, TidesCenter and the Relationship with Heinz Endowments.” Herrera explains “apart from that institutional grantmaking relationship, neither Tides Foundation nor TidesCenter has any relationship with Teresa Heinz Kerry…..” Herrera continues on listing disclaimers for several groups Tides provides grants to including United For Justice and Peace, UFJP, and CAIR. UFJP has over 800 member groups including A.N.S.W.E.R. and others who carried anti-Israel and anti-American posters up NYC’s 7th Avenue the Sunday before the Republican Convention.

Herrera confirms in 2002 Tides Foundation granted money to CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations. Herrera says “there have been many hateful claims about Tides Foundation and CAIR who received their one time $5000 grant as part of Tides 9/11 fund. Herrera writes “CAIR has explicitly stated that they have no ties whatsoever to any violent or discriminatory organizations.” Then Herrera directed readers to CAIR’s website. Their 9/11 project, called the “Interfaith Coalition Against Hate Crimes,” was created to mitigate hate crimes against Muslims and promote relationships between Muslims and non-Muslims.

CAIR’s website links to other projects and groups interested in relationships between Muslims and Americans. It appears excluding Jewish or Israeli Americans. One effort CAIR participated in was signing a joint Muslim/Arab-America statement against Israel. The other signators include American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee, American Muslims for Jerusalem, American Task Force for Lebanon, American Task Force on Palestine, Arab American Institute and Muslim Public Affairs Council. The letter accused Israel of ““indiscriminately killing innocent Palestinians, including many children” along with “the demolition of Palestinian homes in Gaza’s Rafah refugee camp.” The letter CAIR signed continues to say that “Some of these acts of destruction amount to grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention and are war crimes.” The letter did not address the actions of terrorists murdering innocent Israeli fathers and mothers and children.

One site connected to by CAIR quoted Dr. Talat Sultan, elected Ameer, president, of ICNA, the Islamic Circle of North America 2003-2004. Sultan, an Education Ph.D from UCLA in 1970, is known internationally for contributing towards to Islamization of educational system. He taught at the University of North Carolina, before joining UmmulQurraUniversity in Saudi Arabia. At present, Sultan is a principal of the Islamic Foundation School in Villa Park, Ill.

Dr. Talat Sultan said “As Muslims it is our duty to help the victims and contribute positively in the society we live in” then stating “Our beloved prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, has said.” Sultan, spokesman for ICNA, condemned the recent slaughter of the RussianSchool children saying “The abduction of innocent children is a terrorist act not permitted by Islam. Those who commit acts of terror, murder and cruelty in the name of Islam are betraying the values of the faith they claim to represent.” Then Sultan called upon the American administration “to condemn the Israeli government’s illegal behaviour and demand that they cease and desist.” Sultan did not condemn bomb murderers climbing aboard buses in West Jerusalem, murdering innocent civilians.

CAIR participates in Project MAPS. MAPS is an anacronym for “Muslims In The American Public Square” headquartered at CMCU, The Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, located within Georgetown University, blocks from the Heinz-Kerry Georgetown residence. The Center, established in 1992, was created to facilitate dialogue between the Muslim world, the West, Islam and Christianity. MAPS website says “The last decade of the twentieth century has witnessed a thriving, vibrant and expanding Muslim community on the American civic horizon. The Muslim community in America, six million in number, is a replica of the more than one billion Muslims of the world,” continuing “The only other parallel is the Hajj in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, where millions of Muslims of all colors, races, ethnic origins and countries assemble annually to perform the religious rites.” Several of the 911 WTC and Pentagon pilot murderers are alleged to be passported from Saudi Arabia.

MAPS is affiliated with the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, SFS, a school within Georgetown University. The Foreign Service School was founded in 1919, six years before the US Foreign Service was established. Its first Dean was Edmund A. Walsh, S.J., Society of Jesuits. Walsh founded the school because he believed the U.S. diplomats he observed at the Versailles Conference were inadequately trained.

Vincent Cornell, a professor in the Department of Religious Studies at DukeUniversity in DurhamNorth Carolina sits on MAPS advisory board. Duke hosted the fourth annual PSM, Palestinian Solidarity Movement, conference. Dr. Zahid H Bukhari, listed as one of MAPS principle investigators, acknowledged Pew Charitable Trusts providing MAPS with a $1.25 million over three years to fund a project assisting “the American Muslim community going through a transitional period as it comes out of its initial phase of hesitation, isolation, identity crisis and anxiety.” Bukhari said, “More than half the world’s population is Muslim or Christian.” “Regrettably, it continues to be imperative to counter the misunderstanding and ignorance of Islam.”

Heinz Endowment president Maxwell King posted a statement on www.heinz.org in defence of Heinz-Kerry, chair of the Howard Heinz Endowment and the Vira I. Heinz Endowment, “Neither she nor her foundations has ever funded any of the extremist organizations or unpatriotic causes listed in the email you forwarded. Period.” “The Tides Foundation also says that no Heinz funds have gone to any of the groups named in the e-mail. Further, it says Tides itself gives little or no money to several of them.”

King went further to state the Heinz Endowment complies 100% with its mandate, limiting funds to use within Pennsylvania. King did not address the Endowment funding a RAND Corporation project , “Population Health and Health Disparities report examined “how built environments affected health outcomes” focused on Santa Monica, California, the Washington, D.C. area, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Heinz Endowments website listing of 2003 endowments stated RAND received $100,000 to “review and analyse universal pre-kindergarten efforts across the U.S., benefiting “children, youth and families.”

Heinz Endowment released this statement, “If you disagree with our work and our values, we respect that. And if you want to let us know you disagree with our values, we respect that as well. TidesCenter and Tides Foundation have been strong supporters of the freedom of expression over the years and firmly believe that all voices should be heard—as long as those voices are not intentionally spreading false and misleading information.” CAIR and UFJP may be guilty of doing just that. Misleading.

With the Pew Research Centers poll indicating “70% of regular Fox viewers are supporting the President while 67% of CNN watchers are Kerry backers,” and Georgetown/Zogby poll of American Muslim support for the Presidential candidates, commissioned by MAPS, reporting an overwhelming 81% support for John Kerry, as November begins, it might be cogent to let Maxwell King and Teresa Heinz-Kerry and the Heinz Endowments know there are details about Tides, CAIR and UFJP, factchecker.org overlooked.

The recent decade of corporate heads rolling should have brought home to Mrs. Kerry and her team, the liability of being a leader. Being a leader of an Endowment makes her solely responsible for affiliations done on her behalf, not necessarily, personally. Enron is a prime example of a CEO being held legally and supervisorially responsible with control person liability for actions taken by his company. Of course, a leader can say they didn’t know. A judge and jail time will tell them differently.

Mother Teresa, as Mrs. Kerry says her friends call her, is a candid, brash and outspoken woman running to become America’s first African-American Presidential wife. In the same CNN interview in which she confessed her deceased husband remains her love; her second husband provides companionship, she announced if her current husband told her ten years ago, he intended to run for president she would have answered “not with me.” That sounds “like a plan.”

One day, she might make a wonderful First Lady. At this time, while she denies accountability for actions done on her endowments behalf and does not appear to be relating to “you are judged by who you are associated with,” America isn’t ready for her. And may never be.